


getaway

by enmity



Category: Persona 2, Persona Series
Genre: 50 Sentences, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, LMFAO - Freeform, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12913086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: Jealousy doesn’t look good on anyone.





	getaway

**Author's Note:**

> kind of ... hmm ... overly vague and emo for no reason ... there are other obvious pairings in this too but didn't feel like tagging. obviously au where maya hecked up in monado mandala lol
> 
> also "two w strong karma" still don't know what this means, help

_01—ring_

She picks up the menu, full of placid curiosity as she skims the selection, and he does the same, but his gesture is a transparently hollow mirror of hers; Katsuya glances away from _tea_ and _parfait_ printed in tasteful font to the back of her right hand pressed against the cardboard, her fingers curled and bare, and it’s not until she’s set the menu down to smile at the waiter that his relief at the absence of a ring fizzles away—the leftover guilt a bitter aftertaste, untempered and flourishing.  

_02—hero_

“Haven’t you learned by now,” Serizawa starts, more warmly than her sentiment suggests, and for a split second the surging impulse to echo back her words overpowers the urge to make her stop looking away—to take her aside, to pull the curtain down for once, “that you can’t always be someone’s savior?”

_03—memory_

There are good days, too, days when he doesn’t feel the need to fill empty silence with thoughts that irrevocably spiral back into _missed opportunities_ and _you deserve better_ and _why can’t you let anything go_ —there are good days and Katsuya never tires of reminding himself that, but sometimes: sometimes he remembers seeing the way Serizawa’s fond smile folds for Saga, even with his back turned to her, and can’t help but think that maybe teaching himself the concept of _necessary sacrifice_ over and over again can only get him so far.  

_04—box_

“This doesn’t mean anything you might expect,” he tells her, aiming to sound neutral instead of accusatory, “so don’t even try reading into it,” and watches Serizawa wordlessly take the giftwrapped box he pushes into her hands, her skeptical gaze turned up pointedly to meet his instead of Amano’s name written across the attached card, congratulatory and neat.

_05—run_

“You’ve got a point; I’ll continue on as I always have, too,” she had said once, and he blanched—but only because a part of him had wondered, and not just when it came to her, where the line between chasing after happiness and running away from reality truly lay.

_06—hurricane_

When he learned from Amano that Serizawa had taken dancing lessons it took him slightly aback; he couldn’t help but think the woman, with her cheerful desperation and foul mouth and heavy makeup, was a hurricane of contradictions if he’d ever seen one.

_07—wings_

“Don’t let him get you,” Baofu’s warning rang distant and muffled in his peripheral, trying to drag him back to his senses, but all Katsuya could think of as he trained the gun to his brother’s head was the sinking realization that _this isn’t supposed to feel liberating at all_ —and yet it did.

_08—cold_

Rain falls heavy and cold against the window of his car, obscuring the dim concrete gray of the parking lot, and he stares inanely at the blurry shapes of barren trees lining the street outside instead of her face as she accuses, every syllable taut and lancet-sharp: “You don’t even know what you want, do you, Katsuya-san?”

_09—red_

Katsuya holds the outburst in, but against his own better judgment still turns to her; he tells her no, he doesn’t, he doesn’t know much of anything at all, and her expression stays blank until he finds himself lost in the faux red of her hair and the sharp scent of her perfume—making every effort to pretend he doesn’t savor it when the last glimmer of defiance in her eyes crumbles away, slowly, until all that’s left are exhaustion and the brittle ghost of some deeper, unknowable emotion.

_10—drink_

The first time they go out drinking after the city came back down he doesn’t end up sobbing miserably into his hands, despite the urge and the added benefit of Saga not being around to laugh at him, but Serizawa offers him one of those half-familiar smiles nonetheless, amused and almost conniving beneath the light; _you don’t see detectives like this otherwise_ , she remarks, sounding as pleased as he remembers, and though he frowns in response, any sense of affront fails to linger.

_11—birthday_

Amano’s delighted expression is blinding, surrounded by glittering confetti; Serizawa brushes past him to pull the other woman into a hug, almost as if he isn’t there, and a part of him wants to laugh at the fact that he’s still holding out hope even now—but by the time the celebrations are over and Amano’s been tucked in he finds himself turning around from his place at the doorway and offering Serizawa a ride back to her place, not forgetting to add: “You’re due to make up with him by now anyway,” knowing it’s less of an excuse and more an assuagement, and realizes as soon as he’s said it that _this_ , if anything else, is something worth laughing about.

_12—temptation_

“I wish you two wouldn’t look over at me while whispering like that…” he said, but felt his face grow warm at the overheard words anyway.

_13—view_

She’s blurred around the edges by the time he pulls away; there’s a few seconds of confused blinking until Serizawa snipes, not entirely harmlessly, her eyes soft and her fingers curling delicately around the bridge of his glasses (oh, so that’s where it went): “What—did you think I was _her_?”

_14—music_

“The three of us could really go places!” she suggested after one particularly successful negotiation, ignoring entirely Katsuya’s perpetual case of fright when performing for an audience that didn’t comprise of demons and the way Tatsuya immediately attempted to shake away her arm before it even went around his shoulder.

_15—hold_

“I’m sorry, Detective,” she said, the words mumbled against his back, “I almost got you in trouble,” and he briefly glanced over his shoulder, a comfortingly placating statement already prepared, but in the end all he could say was, “we’re almost there, Serizawa-kun, just hold on.”

_16—cover_

She cornered him afterwards, once she made sure Baofu was out of sight, “You should have told me it was a trap!” trying her best to sound angry, and he apologized feebly, pretending the dry brightness of her eyes didn’t give away her overwhelming relief.

_17—promise_

“This is going to sound really stupid, but—before, before this, I really thought that you’d have stopped climbing after her by now,” she says and sighs, looks at her empty hands, sounding more disappointed at herself than anyone else, “I thought… If you could, maybe then I’d be able to do the same; but funny how that goes, huh?”

_18—dream_

“You think I’ve got everything together?” Katsuya started, sounding more frustrated than intended, his hand scraping over the table, “You know, I had a dream once too—” and then he remembered they were supposed to be _acting_ , and Amano was waiting outside, counting on him; he pinched the beginning of a headache between his eyes, getting up and muttering, “sorry, Serizawa-kun; let’s just follow the script and get this over with already.”

_19—candle_

There are good days and there are days when he wakes up staring at the ceiling, feeling like someone’s shoved a candle down his throat, burning wick and all; days when he finds it harder to reach out to his brother, when he has to tell himself _it’s fine, there’s nothing wrong_ , even as he avoids glancing at the rearview mirror in fear of confronting that telltale inky yellow coloring his reflection’s irises.

_20—talent_

He drops her off at her place afterwards and, months later, it takes a lot of talent on both their parts to take up Amano’s invitation to catch up over dinner and show up greeting each other with identically placid looks on their faces—both of them playing the role of the oblivious fool with equal degrees of enthusiasm.   

_21—silence_

“Katsuya-san?” Amano asks, concern drawn over her expression when she catches him looking silently at the wide glass doors long after Serizawa and Saga’s bickering disappeared outside it, and Katsuya looks at her, makes a show of looking flustered, “It’s nothing, Amano-kun, I was just distracted,” all the while being reminded of the fact that he’s always been good at pretending, anyway—him and _her_ both—so it shouldn’t be of any surprise.

_22—hollow_

“I don’t—know,” she says, every word a private, hollow admission, “I just didn’t want to feel alone anymore.”

_23—fire_

Only in an afterthought does he think to feel alarmed at the way her eyes had flashed a sickly yellow under the half-light, the pallid color fading away as he pulled her close, swallowing the rest of his unsaid words along with the guilt burning hot and unpleasant in the back of his throat.

_24—strength_

The rational part of him wants to convince her that she doesn’t _need_ to hold onto the strength of someone else just to survive, but he hasn’t been listening to his own advice very much these days, either—why should she?

_25—mask_

Jealousy doesn’t look good on anyone; the trick, of course, is knowing how to mask it.

_26—ice_

“I see Suou-nii is still as hopeless as ever,” Serizawa declares, casually setting down her glass, but it’s the potently bitter smile he catches on her face that sends the ice cubes in his stomach materializing.

_27—fall_

Her hand is warm and braced against his shoulder as she climbs over him on the passenger seat—their knees momentarily knocking together—almost as though fearing that if she weren’t holding on to something, she would start to fall apart, just like that: all the outside layers peeled back to reveal nothing but the bones and bitter desperation underneath.

_28—forgotten_

She looks so small curled up and tired against the car door that it’s easy to forget she could still easily land that uppercut across the dashboard and on his jaw at the slightest whim.

_29—safe_

“You can use your sexy looks next time,” Katsuya said, straight-faced, regretting it immensely the instant the words left his mouth.

_30—just_

She turned around as Amano lit the cigarette, her eyes narrowed, “Do you _really_ believe all that justice crap you keep talking about?” but Nanjo was already herding them up the cramped air vent before Katsuya could come up with an appropriate response.

_31—sacred_

“Madonna-Wh—What are you even talking _about_ , Serizawa-kun?” he demands, more than a little affronted, but she only laughs more, hides her amused smile into his shoulder instead of answering.

_32—confusion_

She turns her face away abruptly, saying, “You’re just never going to be that person,” and he lets the words sting, doesn’t lessen the blow with a reply: _you think I don’t know that?_

_33—world_

It was funny how something as fickle as _love_ could narrow down your vision of the world to just a few people.

_34—formal_

“Don’t you think… that sounds a little too informal…” he argued feebly, the prospect of burying himself in a ditch more compelling by the second, but Serizawa didn’t seem to be listening.

_35—sarcasm_

“We wouldn’t be able to have a traditional wedding anyway, since he’s, you know, still _legally_ dead—we’re working that part out—but I don’t suppose _you’d_ be willing to help out a friend and do something about that?”

_36—laugh_

She huffs out a laugh then, something soft and self-conscious, “Oh, don’t give me that face, I know you’d never!”

_37—lies_

Doesn’t he understand, she must think, that she’s tired of _wanting_ ; that she’s tired of fooling herself?

_38—forever_

“Then,” and his hand closes over hers after a silence that feels stretched far too long, “I’ll end it for you.”

_39—overwhelmed_

It’s too discouraging to keep tally on all the times he’s acquiesced far too readily to her demands, so he stops trying altogether.

_40—whisper_

He’d expected a slap at best, maybe, probably, with her shoulders tensing the way they usually did before landing a nasty hook against an adversary, but the split-second sense of alarm collapses before he can even brace for impact—Serizawa lets her hand drop to her side, limp, whispering something too quiet for him to catch; then she turns on her heel and marches out the door, her footsteps slow and steady, carrying herself down the empty hall with a purpose she doesn’t have (isn’t supposed to have).

_41—wait_

“You can’t just—keep waiting for someone to fall apart just so you can be there to pick up the pieces,” but suddenly they’re not so sure who’s referring to who here.

_42—talk_

“If you’d try talking to him maybe you wouldn’t be here at all,” Katsuya starts, as carefully level as he can manage, only for her to interrupt harshly: “Oh, sure, let me take this from someone who can barely hold a straightforward conversation with the woman he’s been pining over for like, how long—?”

_43—search_

There aren’t many people with hair as shockingly red as hers, but by the time he moves on from the stage of imagining glimpses of her in public transit or the city crowd (and it takes a while) he’s convinced himself that it won’t be so surprising if she’s moved on to some other color by now.

_44—hope_

“Of _course_ I believe things will get better for me,” she hisses, suddenly pushing away, her eyes wide and alight with irritation, “do _you_?”

_45—eclipse_

Though Amano’s presence would soon come to thoroughly eclipse hers, in the very beginning—the moment he walked into before everything started—it had been Serizawa, kneeled and trembling with shock, who he had looked at first (for whatever that was worth).

_46—horizon_

The skyline outside stretches slowly into dusk, the darkness dimming the red of her hair; he looks at her expression caught in the shadow, really looks, and for the first time realizes why her other self, her first one, had had a high heel and a fracture where a face should be.

_47—valiant_

“Is this the end, then?” she ventures, her voice quiet in the cramped car, and he remains stoic, pulling on his best impression of valiant bravado: “You should go back home, Serizawa-kun, it’s getting late; I’m sure _someone’s_ worried.”

_48—unknown_

Her eyes flash with a color he can’t quite explain away as reflected light, but then she smiles, so wan and so nauseatingly fragile, it takes effort not to flinch.

_49—lock_

The car door locks the moment she slams it shut, wordless and with more force than necessary, and for once he doesn’t bother to look behind him as he drives away.

_50—breathe_

“I didn’t know you smoked, Detective,” she had remarked, the first time they’d seen each other again, and only in hindsight did he notice her tone had been too flat, too obviously aiming for disinterested; he’d smiled at her sheepishly, tentatively braced for another ribbing, but all Serizawa did was exhale into her palms, cupped in the rapidly chilling air, and ask if she could borrow his lighter.   

**Author's Note:**

> [this](http://dijeh.tumblr.com/post/10413142913/) chart is to blame for everything  
> 


End file.
